This blog started off by focussing on NZ's smaller 3rd level airlines, past and present. It has evolved to trying to present some record of NZ's domestic airline operations and some of the larger charter operators, interesting NZ international airliner movements and photos I have taken around the country. Comments, corrections or contributions are welcome, Steve - westland831@gmail.com

11 November 2012

TranzGlobal - The unlisted freight airline

TranzGlobal came into being following
North South Aviation placing itself in voluntary liquidation on the 27th
of June 1994. The day after that Steve Mosen, who had been North South
Aviation’s chief pilot, formed a new company, TranzGlobal
Holdings Ltd.

TranzGlobal took to the skies on the 4th of July 1994 using
North South Aviation’s Bandeirante ZK-KML and the same air crew. TranzGlobal
believed they could continue the air service North South Aviation had operated
using that company’s licences and certification and so operated without their
own air service certificate, operations manual and proficiency checks. On the
26th of July 1994 the Civil Aviation Authority caught up with this
irregularity and it grounded the airline. The grounding was temporary, however,
the CAA
being quickly satisfied that the operational control and supervisory provisions
were in place, and the adequacy of the documentation and Check and Training
provisions and approvals. This allowed the airline to return to service the following
day with its own operating certificate. CAA Director Kevin Ward told The
Dominion that it was a genuine case of misunderstanding and the airline would
not be prosecuted for operating without a certificate. Despite this statement a
complaint to the CAA by the director of another airline operator led to charges
being laid. TranzGlobal were eventually convicted
and fined $500 with court costs of $95 and solicitor's fee of $100.00.

One of Tranzglobal’s first pilots was Paul Webb. He had started flying when he was 15 years old and leaving
school he began trading in property, buying, selling and building low-cost housing
in south Auckland. Gaining his commercial pilot’s licence he not only obtained
a flying job with TranzGlobal, but went on to become a co-owner with Steve
Mosen.

TranzGlobal
never advertised its services. Some years later Paul Webb told the Dominion “the
company went out of its way not to market itself. No listing the phonebook, no
marketing material, even its aircraft were painted plain white with no operator
identification. We just kept to ourselves we had no alliances or allegiances
with anybody. Any arrangements we had with clients remained within the company.
Not a lot of people knew what we were doing. But TranzGlobal was carrying
500,000 kilograms of cargo a month,” most of which was carried for DHL International
(NZ) Ltd.

Embraer Bandeirante ZK-KML at Hokitika on a passenger charter to Hokitika for the Wildfoods Festival on 9 March 1996. In the photo above the a small TranzGlobal logo can be seen under the cockpit window. This one logo is the only TranzGlobal branding the company's aircraft ever carried carried. The header photo for this post is a close up of the logo on KML.

In mid-1995 a typical day for TranzGlobal saw the Bandeirante operating
an early morning Auckland-Wellington-Christchurch service with a 6.00am
departure from Auckland on a Monday to Friday basis. The return service left
Christchurch at 5.00pm arriving in Auckland at 8.00pm. It then did an
Auckland-Palmerston-North-Christchurch return service, leaving Auckland 9.10pm
and arriving back in Auckland by 3.30am the following morning.

The
company’s business continued to grow and on the 6th of June 1997 a
second Bandeirante arrived in the country becoming ZK-TZL (c/n 110378) on the
11th of June 1997. A third Bandeirante, ZK-TZM (c/n 110328), was acquired from Ansett New Zealand who operated it as ZK-REW. It was added
to the fleet on the 22nd of September 1998.

The two "new" Bandeirantes in freighter configuration... ZK-TZL above and ZK-TZM below. I always thought the Bandeirantes looked like two quite different aircraft viewed from both sides. Photos taken at Auckland on 4 October 1998

TranzGlobal
only took on contracts worth over $500,000 a year with consistent daily
volumes. By targeting large volume clients the company was able to have just a
few customers and, by understanding their needs, tailor services for them. Paul
Webb said that “as a result the freight service was typically more expensive
than the competition, but service offset the cost. The move to carry passengers
followed the decision by Ansett and Air New Zealand to merge their freight
businesses about two years ago to create Ansett Express. Ansett and Air New
Zealand freight business involved the movement of a lot of cargo during the day
because they had passenger flights with belly space. CityJet responded by
quickly providing daytime freight services as well as the traditional night
services.”

The
company did offer passenger charter flights but the core focus for TranzGlobal remained
courier and air freight work. However, after six months of flying daytime
freight services TranzGlobal realised it had, in some cases, almost empty
aircraft carrying some bags of high yielding freight. Adding passenger seats
made better use of the aircraft and added revenue. With this in mind, in May
1999 TranzGlobal was rebranded as CityJet and introduced low-fare passenger
services.

A last photo of Bandeirante ZK-TZL before it was rebranded as CityJet. Photo taken at Auckland on 16 April 1999

2 comments:

Perhaps Steve it might be worth delving into why the CAA effectively killed off Tranzglobal/Cityjet. It was a fun place to work, and was upsetting the bigger domestic players which meant it had to be shutdown.

The next installment in the North South Aviation/TranzGlobal series will be on Cityjet and the shutdown... I will post that 9 December, but I would love to hear any memories thoughts you have on TranzGlobal/CityJet... I am sure a lot of young pilots got their hours working for them. I would also like to just check what freight routes the airline flew. If you would like to email me my address is westland831@yahoo.co.nz - Cheers, Steve